I want to write especially about buses as it is almost guaranteed that one will use it at some point of their travelling around South East Asia and usually you can only realize that comparing to western standards it is simply scary, when it is too late and you are already loaded on the bus and speeding down the road. Over night buses are especially popular and its idea is great as it turns 10h or 12h into one short night of sleep, and in theory you wake up in the morning at the destination place.
Out of what I have seen so far, the bus journey in Asia would not be considered as safe in European countries. It is not only the safety of the inside of the vehicle but also external factors that combined can make a horror out of your first bus travel.
In my first longer bus trip (a night bus from Bangkok to Chiang Mai) I had to force myself not to think of how unsafe I felt and made myself to listen to music and sleep to forget.
1. Just to mention, even the most VIP bus in Asia is still old, crappy, quite smelly and only if you are lucky clean. Majority of them will have a toilet and air con, but its not guaranteed and even if it is, it can break in the middle of the journey. So to start with, do not trust pictures of the nice bus you have been shown in the travel office and do not expect luxury.
2. Lack of safety belts mentality
I am yet to see a bus and even a taxi with working safety belts. Most of them simply do not have them (oh yes, they originally had them but for some reason where they used to be attached now there are holes) and if they have, they do not work, do not click together or are locked somewhere under the seat. The 'no belts mentality' also include a driver (at least in the taxis, I cannot confirm if a bus driver also do not use them). And as it is such a big deal in western countries, and it is so emphasized, required and we are so used to click them together as soon as we get into the vehicle, the feeling of not having them on turns the red light in your head.
3. Very chaotic traffic
On the roads in Asia rules organized chaos. For a foreigner at first it is nothing more than madness, craziness and taking chance on life, but after some time the understandable pattern comes out of it and you start to get used to it and forget about saying the 'thank you for saving my life' prayer every time you crossed the road (joining the traffic on bike/motorbike/car is a completely different story). So even a mere thought about a bus with you inside, in the middle of the night, without seat belts, going through this kind of traffic make you feel (at least) a little bit concerned.
4. Unknown conditions of the roads
You simply don't know what to expect, some roads are proper, nice and the ride is smooth and some are a bare ground with millions of holes in it making the bus jump and almost fall apart and if on top of that the rain it falling and it turns he road literally into a lake, you seriously start praying.
5. Doubtful speed limits
I am not a driver, especially not in Asian countries and I may not know, but sometimes the bus is going very very fast... Its hard for me to tell if its speeding or not but I think it is more to do with different and generally not as strict roads regulation, which make for example potential speeding or driving without seat belts not a big problem.
6. Horror stories
Every one of us have been told a dark scenario of the mad mafia driver who kidnaps all the unaware people in the vehicle. Night time travelling in the darkness, not knowing where you are and the fact that you need to completely trust the driver (although you know that you should never trust a driver you see first time in your life in a third world country) who often is the only one driver in spite of a long time of the journey and do not speak english very well is enough for you to have a sleepless night on the bus and being horrified every time the bus stops on a dark street only to turn out it is a short coffee break.
This is where my iphone is so incredibly useful as with google maps app I know exactly where we are every time and everywhere.
The worst bus trip
While in Cambodia, Darwin and I wanted to go from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. We had a choice between a regular night bus and a little bit more expensive hotel bus. This second one sounded so good - instead the seats it had the cabins and beds in it, plug for charging and free wifi, cushions and even blankets. The journey suppose to take around 8 h so we thought we don't mind to pay extra for an extra comfort in overnight bus. We certainly weren't the only ones thinking that way because the bus was fully packed when we were showed the bus and placed into our cabin. We quickly discovered that wifi does not work, but more importantly few very worrying things started to emerge in my head. The bus didn't look as I imagined - the cabins were so tiny and claustrophobic that although not having a problem with small spaces, made me feel very uncomfortable. The cabins were placed on both side of the bus with one cabin on top of another (two 'floors' of cabins) but through he middle of the bus was going only one very narrow way to even the furthest cabin at the back. The way in (and out) was so narrow that I had to stand sideways to get out of the bus. Unfortunately our cabin was on lower level but thankfully it was only the second one away from the main bus doors. Very quickly I realised that this layout of the bus do not pass any safety standards what so ever - if there was an accident there was no chance of someone surviving it. When the driver started driving and made the bus go very fast very quickly and I felt the whole vehicle shaking I seriously started to pray. I finally forced myself to sleep as it was too late to get out of this bus. I was soon woken up by the sound of rain on my window and feeling of the bus going up and down and shaking heavily all over. When I looked out the window and saw huge holes in the road I knew why the bus was wobbling so bad. It wasn't long from that point when we had to have a break in the middle of nowhere as something in the bus broke down. After 20 min fixing we realised that it was air con that stopped working and the last 6h of the journey we had to seat in the boiling hot, full of people in tiny cabins, smelling of dirty socks and sweat air. It was terrible! Moreover, my window started to leak from the rain so at some point I woke up in a puddle of water... with nowhere to go. We somehow survived this journey, but I will definitely never ever take a 'hotel' bus again...
Regardless above accusations of lack of safety in transport in Asia, in my opinion there is one very important factor which still make Asian roads relatively safe and I wouldn't be surprised if after looking at the statistics there were proportionally less roads accidents in Asia than in Europe. In Asia there is no culture of drinking as such. Asians of course do drink sometimes, but not like westerners and I have not seen a single drunk Asian person while being here including middle of the Saturday night on a road or in a bar (I'm talking about seriously drunk, just like you can see every night on Newcastle streets). In some statistics it says that 1 in 3 deaths on western roads are caused by drunk driving (1 in almost 5 by other drugs like marijuana or cocaine). Therefore I could see how potentially eliminating drunk drivers can decrease number of accidents on the roads.
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